


One Sweet Love Story

by therestlessbrook



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Frank is just trying to have a life, Karen is a true crime podcaster, Romance, This was my attempt to write a rom com, and a food truck, and the two collide, with donuts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 14:49:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19320358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therestlessbrook/pseuds/therestlessbrook
Summary: It began, like all great love stories, with a donut.Or, that Food Truck Rom Com.





	One Sweet Love Story

It began, like all great love stories, with a donut.

Karen Page marched down the street, her blood simmering with quiet anger.

Two months. Two months spent hunting down a lead and she ended up with nothing. Nothing. A source left town, took every scrap of evidence with him, and left Karen with plenty of theories and half-written drafts, but if she tried to publish those, all she would end up with was a lawsuit.

Two months. Of digging, of interviews, of quietly collecting evidence—all for it to collapse.

This was the problem with true crime. The truth required witnesses and facts.

She should have been a fiction writer. Shouldn’t have let herself be seduced into true crime podcasts and articles, into the lurid stories of robbers and heists and shady deals. She could’ve gone into romance, like her best friend in college, who now made well over six figures with her self-published fiction about space barbarians.

But no. Instead, Karen found herself walking toward a food truck because she was going to drown her sorrows in the best cruller of New York.

The food truck, called Donut Knock It, had taken to parking on the corner of 47th. It was a good place, for a food truck—plenty of foot traffic and near enough to Karen’s offices that she could stop by in the afternoon for a coffee and sugar pick-me-up.

There was no line, thank goodness. Karen strode toward the truck with such intent that she didn’t notice the man until they’d collided.

She ran smack into chest and shoulders—because that’s all he was. “Shit, sorry,” he said, reaching out to steady her. “I was looking at the menu—didn’t see you there.”

She blinked. “No—my fault. Got distracted by the prospect of sugar and caffeine.”

He nodded, as if this were a perfectly acceptable reason to be distracted.

The young man beyond the cash register—which was really just an iPad, because this was one of those high-tech affairs that didn’t do cash—said, “Order?”

Karen and the man said, at the same moment, “Cruller and coffee.”

The man blinked. So did she.

“Can do,” said the young man, “but we’re down to one cruller.”

Karen looked at the man—and he looked back.

He had dark eyes and hair and the kind of musculature that came from hard labor or seriously lucky genetics. His jawline was so sharp she could have cut herself on it. He wore a black hoodie and wore it well, the fabric soft and touchable. He looked like someone’s idea of a romantic hero, if a romantic her had been put through a couple of boxing matches and dressed by a teenager.

“I hear the jelly filled are just as good,” she said.

He shrugged. “Too sweet for my tastes.”

“You’re at a donut truck,” she pointed out.

“Actually, we’re a pâtisserie,” said the young man, and Karen could almost hear the neighborhood gentrifying a little more as he spoke. He was in the midst of ringing up a cruller and coffee—his gaze darting between Karen and Mr. Jawline. Karen could almost see the thoughts running through his brain—did he offer it to the blonde in the heels or the man who looked like bench press the truck?

The young man gave the donut to Mr. Jawline.

Because of course did.

Afterward, she wasn’t sure what made her say it. It was probably some kind of low-blood sugar induced insanity.

“You can’t give out donuts based on some kind of jawline-based merit system!” she snapped.

Mr. Jawline laughed. Then he blinked, as if surprised to hear himself make such a noise.

The young man suddenly looked uncertain, as if he were not longer sure that Mr. Jawline was the one to be afraid of.

Mr. Jawline said, “If that’s how we’re deciding things…” Then he handed the donut bag to Karen.

She took it out of pure reflex.

“It’s all on me,” he told the young man, and swiped his card before Karen could utter a word.

The man nodded at Karen, far more gentlemanly than anyone in a _freaking hoodie_ had any right to look. “Afternoon, ma’am.” And then he vanished, like some kind of donut-dispensing superhero.

Karen stood there, holding her cruller, feeling more off balance than when her source told her he was moving to Florida.

“What the hell,” she said.

The man in the donut truck just shrugged.

* * *

“A strange man gave me a donut,” said Karen as she walked into the offices.

Well, sort of offices. Really, it was a spare room in Matt’s apartment that he’d chosen not to rent out. It housed their desks, the recording equipment, the tiny-soundproofed closet that looked more like a panic room than anything else. The light on the closet was red, which meant Foggy was in there, recording.

Matt pulled one earbud out of his ear. He was probably listening to yesterday’s recordings, running them through to make sure that he’d edited out every stumbled line and fumbled delivery. “Like—just a random man? Because you probably shouldn’t eat it, then.”

“No,” said Karen, pulling off her coat and slipping it over the back of a chair. “I went to the donut truck—”

“I thought they were a pâtisserie.”

“—Donut truck,” Karen said firmly. “And there was one last cruller. I was about to throw down with this one guy over it, but then he just paid for it and my coffee and vanished into the crowds. Like some kind of food-dispensing hero. He had the jawline for it.”

“So it was nice.”

“I think so?” Karen sat across from him. “Guys don’t just do that, not in my experience.”

“Men have bought you drinks before,” said Matt. “I have seen it happen.”

“Yeah, but those men have ulterior motives.”

Matt sniffed. “Is that a cruller?”

She set the donut bag on the table, mindful of the papers she didn’t want to get greasy. “Your sense of smell is as uncanny as ever.”

They’d started the podcast—Crime Time—two years ago. It began as a lark, as something to do in their off hours, but then Karen did a series on an unsolved girl that went missing near Buffalo, and it went viral. Soon, they had people trying to get in on advertisements, on merchandise, and Foggy ended up trademarking their logo and then—from their it just steamrolled.

Now, Karen mostly wrote about missing persons and unsolved mysteries. Matt did pieces on organized crime—the Yakuza, mostly. As for Foggy, he liked the oddball crimes: tales of Romanian officials trying to bribe voters with fried chicken, a parrot who was a witness in a murder trial, and stolen cheese vans that were eventually located by food-sniffing police dogs.

(“Cheddar luck next time, criminals,” Foggy had said, while Karen threw a crumpled piece of paper at him.)

“How’s that piece on the Gansey girl going?” asked Matt. He had sheafs of paper before him, fingers already skimming across the braille. He had a contact in Kyoto who was happy to send Matt translated news reports in exchange for American sweets.

“Dead end,” said Karen flatly. “My source—the one who saw her get into the car, he’s moving to Florida and he won’t go on the record.”

Matt considered. “We could run the piece, but we’d have to cut the theories about the abductor being her uncle. If we put that up without a source, we’d be hit with a defamation suit faster than you can say, ’bankrupt.’”

“The entire piece falls apart,” said Karen. “Even with the unsolved, there has to be some hint of who it could be. And let’s face it—the uncle is perfect for this crime. The only reason he wasn’t arrested was because all of the evidence was circumstantial.”

“Maybe he was innocent.”

“No one to account for his whereabouts,” said Karen. “And my source swears he saw the uncle behind the wheel of the car that April Gansey got into. But it was his word against the uncle’s—and the uncle was a freaking teacher. A sports coach. A pillar of the community.” Her mouth twisted in irritation. “My gut says it was him. If the source had been willing to talk on the record, we could at least maybe have reintroduced the idea. Gotten more witnesses to come forward.”

“We’re a true crime podcast, not crime solvers,” said Matt gently. “We’re here to entertain and educate.”

“I know.” Karen stared down at the table, feeling tired and a little defeated. She probably just needed sugar. She pulled open the small white bag. The cruller was a little dented, banged up in her walk here. She took a bite—and it was perfect. Crispy outside, perfectly yeasted interior, with just enough glaze. She groaned a little as she took another bite.

“Either stop making those noises or bring us all donuts next time,” said Foggy, stepping out of the sound-proofed recording closet. “You’re making me hungry.” He had dents in his hair where the headphones would have sat. “I’d kill for a jelly filled.”

“Tomorrow,” said Karen. “In the meantime…” She opened up her laptop, and went back to work on the Gansey files.

* * *

She did not expect to see Mr. Jawline again.

She really didn’t.

Which was why Karen was wearing a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants the next time she walked up to the donut truck.

It was six in the morning, after all. No one could expect her to be dressed. But they had a phone call with a French company about foreign rights and Foggy insisted they all show up. Still blinking sleep from her eyes, she took her place in line—then she saw the familiar outline of shoulders and hoodie.

“Hey,” she said, half-hoping she was wrong. But the man turned and—sure enough, it was Mr. Jawline.

“Morning, ma’am,” he said, nodding a greeting.

Her jaw cracked in a yawn that she tried to cover. “W-what are you doing here so early?”

“Trying to get a cruller before they run out,” he said, expression and voice utterly flat. But she could see amusement lurking behind his eyes.

“God,” she said. “I’m sorry about the other day. It was just—a really bad day.”

“We all have those.” The line moved forward a few inches, and they shifted. “You doing better?”

If it were anyone else, she’d think that question were a formality. A stranger offering a token show of courtesy. But there was something in this man’s face that gave her pause, made her think he meant it. “Yeah,” she said. “Thanks.”

When they got up to the front of the line, the man gestured for her to order first. She did—if only because she needed about half a dozen donuts for the office, and when she was finished, she could point over her shoulder at Frank and say, “And whatever he’s having.”

It was the same young man behind the iPad register. “Coffee and cruller?” he asked Mr. Jawline.

The man nodded. “Thanks,” he said to Karen. “Wasn’t necessary.”

“Maybe I wanted to,” said Karen. She flashed him a smile. “I’m Karen, by the way.”

The man held out his hand. He had rather long-fingered hands, and she saw the knuckles were bruised. “Frank.”

“I’ll see you around, Frank,” she said, picking up her box of donuts and walking toward the offices.

* * *

They ended up partnering with some French production company to translate their podcasts—which would a nice little boost to their finances, as well as more exposure. They celebrated by going out for drinks at some place Matt read about in a “what’s new and upcoming in the neighborhood” column. All it meant was that the drinks were overpriced and the lighting was a weird shade of orange that made everyone look a little jaundiced.

“So what are you working on now?” asked Karen. “Please tell me it’s not the parrot as a witness thing.”

Foggy held up a whisky. He’d only ordered it because Karen had, and now he refused to send it back even though he clearly hated it. Matt calmly sipped a frozen margarita, claiming it was too hot to drink anything neat.

“The parrot case is fascinating,” Foggy said, with the earnestness of the tipsy. “I mean, it brings up all sorts of questions—like parrots do recognize people. And they can communicate, sometimes even using our language. So does that give them the personhood needed to stand up as a witness. I mean, if this happens and the bird ends up putting a murderer in jail—will this bring about a wave of security parrots? Will people be purchasing them not as pets but as potential guards for their homes?”

“Okay, this is getting ridiculous even for me,” said Karen. She drained the last of her whisky and said, “I’m getting another.”

She approached the bar, squeezing her way through the hordes of college students and painfully hip twenty-somethings. Someone’s elbow knocked into her and she grimaced, stumbling away, when an arm came down in between Karen and the too-sharp elbow. Karen glanced up, prepared to put on her “I-am-just-here-to-hang-out-with-friends-and-so-help-me-if-you-try-to-pick-me-up-I-will-dump-an-overpriced-margarita-in-your-lap” face.

But the man with his arm half around her was—Mr. Jawline. No, Frank. That was his name. He wasn’t wearing a hoodie; rather, he had on a buttoned shirt and his hair was a little shorter than before, as if he’d just shaved the edges. It only made the lines of his face even starker, more sharp.

“Hold on,” he said, and then before she could say a word, he did this thing. Angled himself into the ground and reversed his stance—like a wedge cramming into a door and yanking it wider. Then he gestured Karen into the gap before him—toward the bar. She managed to lean against the wood, and there weren’t even any elbows hitting her.

“Thanks,” she said, speaking over the loud music. “It’s a bit crowded in here.”

Frank looked torn between amusement and exasperation. “Don’t tell me—you read about this place in that food column?”

“A friend did,” she said. “You?”

“Same,” he said. He gestured to the bartender, somehow getting her attention with far more speed than Karen could have managed. Again, it was probably the jawline. “Another beer please, ma’am. And whatever she’s having.”

“You don’t have to—” Karen began to say, but before she could even finish, the bartender was getting down the whisky bottle. Frank slid a few bills across the bar and nodded to the bartender.

“You do realize this just means I have to buy another donut,” said Karen. “Possibly three donuts, if we’re talking equal price points.”

Frank laughed—and it was a good laugh. Genuine, with a bit of surprise. As if he didn’t expect to be laughing here. “Yeah—all of this. Not really my scene.”

“What is your scene?” she asked, sipping at her drink. “No—wait. Let me guess. With the hoodies and the coffee—you’re working on your next hit album.”

“I would never inflict that on the world,” he said dryly. “Humanity did nothing to deserve that.” He lifted his beer, and again she saw the bruised and split knuckles. He must have seen her looking, because he said, “I’ve been working in construction.”

“Ah.” Well, that did explain the muscles. But the way he said it, ‘been working in,’ made her think that he hadn’t always done it. That this was some kind of temporary thing. Maybe because Karen had been part of so many temporary things before she and the others started Crime Time.

“And what do you do?” he asked. He glanced over her, but it wasn’t in a pervy way. Karen knew the difference—she’d been the object of enough once-overs to sense them. This seemed more brisk. “Pencil skirt, blouse, heels—I’m guessing, paralegal.”

Karen laughed. “Not even close. Podcaster.”

He blinked. “You can make a living off of that?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “If you go big, which we did. We’re actually celebrating expanding into Europe tonight.”

“And what do you… podcast about?” He said the words uncertainly, as if trying them out.

“True crime,” said Karen, with a shrug. “My friends are into organized crime—and the weird stories. Stolen cheese trucks. I mostly do unsolved murders and disappearances.”

It was as if she’d unplugged him. All of the light and life went out of his face—just vanished. And she was staring into void.

“That right?” Frank said quietly. Something like anger flickered far back, deep in his eyes. “Well, have a good night.”

And then, without another word, he strode past her—toward a table with two men siting there. One of them had dark skin and what looked like a prosthetic leg peeking out between the gap in his jeans and shoe. The other was sleek as a cat, with dark hair and a neat beard. They welcomed Frank to their table with grins and words Karen couldn’t hear.

She’d said something wrong; she didn’t know what. Karen returned to her own table.

“What took you?” asked Foggy.

Karen shrugged. “I met Donut Man.”

“You mean the guy who works the truck?”

“No, the guy who bought me a donut.”

“Ah,” said Matt. “The one with the good jawline.”

She should have known better than to let that little detail slip.

Foggy began to glance about the bar, as if searching for the man in question. “Stop that,” said Karen. “Don’t—be all middle school about this. Or so help me the next time we run into Marci, I will tell her that you’re not over her.”

Foggy heaved a sigh. “Fine.”

She told them what happened, and Matt said, “Maybe he thinks you’re a serial killer groupie.”

Karen glared at him. “I am not.”

“Yeah, but true crime does tend to attract… a certain demographic,” Matt admitted.

“Did you just call all of your friends and coworkers freaks?” said Foggy.

“You do realize that we make up two-thirds of the board, right?” said Karen. “We can vote you out if you piss us off.”

“Can’t vote me out,” said Matt serenely, sipping at his drink. “I’m the disability hire. You’re the only woman. Only person we could really get rid of is Foggy.”

“Hey,” said Foggy. Then he considered. “Okay, fine. I’m probably the easiest person to fire—but may I remind you that I am the only person who can regale you with tales of food-sniffing beagles finding smuggled sausages at the airport? And the pictures?”

“The beagles were pretty cute,” Karen admitted.

“I’ll take your word on that,” said Matt.

“Oh God,” said Foggy. “We are a bunch of freaks, aren’t we?”

“To being freaks,” said Karen, and they clinked their glasses together.

She spent the rest of the night with her friends—and when she looked up, half an hour later, Frank and his group were gone.

She tried not to let that bother her.

* * *

It was two weeks before she saw him again.

It was around noon—and Karen had been neck-deep in evidence about a woman who went missing in the eighties near the Hudson river. After looking through old newspapers and combing pictures, Karen deserved sugar. Needed it. Craved it. She rose from her desk and quietly made her way for the door.

“Bring me back a chocolate one, please,” said Matt, without so much as moving. He had one earphone pressed up to his right ear, and the other was tweaking something on his laptop. Probably editing out background noise.

“You don’t know where I’m going,” Karen said, grabbing her purse. “I could be headed for… a bar.”

“The chocolate glazed, not the chocolate cream filled,” said Matt serenely. “The chocolate creams taste like chalk.”

“Yeah, but that’s what I like about them,” said Foggy. “They remind me of my childhood.”

“So one chocolate glazed and one chocolate cream?” said Karen, with a rueful shake of her head.

“Yes, please.”

She stepped out the door and headed down the hallway, out of Matt’s apartment. Someday, they’d get real offices.

It was a two-block stroll to the donut truck’s usual spot—and sure enough, it was there. She let out a sigh of relief; if that truck ever moved, she was going to have to hunt it down. The young man behind the counter barely looked up before he said, “Cruller?”

“Cruller,” Karen said. “And a chocolate cream, and chocolate glazed, too. Oh, and a cup of coffee, please.”

The young man rang up the order with apparent indifference. The donuts were bagged up and Karen took the coffee in one hand and bag in the other. She turned to walk away and—

He was there. About half a block away. Dressed in a flannel shirt, a jacket tucked into the crook of his elbow. He was walking toward the truck, and Karen couldn’t be sure if he’d seen her or not. That terrible moment in the bar came back to her.

For a moment, Karen was frozen in place. Then she half-turned, pivoting so she could ask the young man, “Did I take the last cruller?”

“No, we’ve got plenty,” he replied.

“Good,” said Karen, then turned to walk away. She crossed the street, head ducked.

She got about a block before she heard a slightly breathless, “Hey.”

A glance over her shoulder and—fuck, he was right behind her. Chest heaving a little, and that shouldn’t have been attractive but it drew the eye to his neck and the way his shoulders vanished into the neckline of his flannel shirt.

“You—you move fast in those shoes,” said Frank. Sure enough, she was wearing low high heels; she hadn’t even really noticed.

“Practice,” Karen replied, unsure of what else to say. He had just chased—well, power-walked—her down a sidewalk. She should probably have been running.

“I’m sorry,” said Frank. “I—shit. This is going to sound crazy, but I need to know.”

Karen’s brain did the equivalent of a record scratch—a flare of noise, then everything just went quiet. Was he about to ask her out? Demand to know if she really was a serial killer groupie? Ask if she’d taken the last cruller again?

“Are you writing about the Stanton massacre?” he asked.

Finally, she managed to collect her thoughts. “I—what?”

“Are you writing something about the massacre in the carousel park that happened a year and a half ago?” he said. “Gang shoot-out. Drug deal gone south.”

That was more familiar ground. “No,” she said. “I don’t really write about organized crime or drugs. I—I do more stuff on disappearances and unsolved murders from history. Only recent thing I’ve been working on is about a seventeen-year-old girl that went missing three years ago.”

She couldn’t quite read Frank. It could have been relief that flashed across his face—or frustration. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, and when he opened them, his expression had steadied. “Okay,” he said, and his voice was softer now.

Something in her rose—a defensiveness she couldn’t explain. “I don’t do it for thrills,” she said, a little coolly. “I… I just like trying to find the truth. There are so many unsolved cases—evidence that just falls through the cracks, people that never get any kind of justice. I’m not a cop or a detective, and I can’t chase down criminals. But I can write—and sometimes, that’s enough. To just tell the story, to try and do right by those involved.”

Frank seemed taken aback. “Okay,” he repeated, as if he didn’t know what else to say.

Honestly, she didn’t know either. “Listen, I have to get back to work,” she said, and turned to go.

She felt his eyes on her until she turned the corner. She hastened back to Matt’s apartment building, taking the steps two at a time. She was breathing a little hard when she set the donut bag on the table and pried open her laptop. It flared to life beneath her touch, and she opened a new search window.

CAROUSEL MASSACRE PARK, she typed.

She never did eat that cruller.

* * *

The thing about working as true crime podcaster is that Karen began to see patterns instead of bodies.

It wasn’t that she wanted to—she tried to humanize every story she wrote, to include more details about the victims than the alleged perpetrators. But she was also a writer, which meant she needed objectivity. She had to be able to step back, to survey the entire narrative at a glance. To look through old photographs and accounts and pick the threads of truth out of the muddled memories and conflicting accounts.

Karen was good at her job. She knew it.

It had been her story that had gone viral, after all. An account of two teenagers kidnapped in the early eighties, who managed to escape from their captors and walked twenty miles through empty forest to find a gas station and rescue. Karen had mapped out that narrative with witness accounts and even talked to one of the teenagers themselves. Karen delved deeply into that story, and when she read aloud her piece into the microphone, she knew she had a winner.

It helped that she had a good speaking voice, she knew. Genetics always played a part.

She’d been right; that had been Crime Time’s big break, and from there, Foggy and Matt’s stories had blown up, as well.

The point was, Karen was good at this. She did her job and did it well. Which was why, about a week into reading about the shoot-out at the carousel, she knew something was wrong.

It wasn’t in the way things were reported; it was in the way things weren’t.

The story had been buried. The only mention was deep in an old Bulletin back issue, and in this age of gun control politics and mass shootings, such a crime shouldn’t have gone so unremarked upon. Which meant, someone had buried it. Maybe the gangs involved had paid someone off.

Karen flicked through old photos, delving deep into the bowels of the internet to find tourist’s photos on instragram of that particular date. She saw a carousel—lovely and bright in the sunlight. She saw pictures of kids playing nearby.

That was when she saw him—and she drew in a sharp breath.

It was on a random instragram picture, someone’s selfie. His shape was fuzzy, in the background. But she recognized the line of his shoulder, the angle of his jaw and nose. Frank sat on a blanket about twenty feet behind the young women taking the selfie. He was taking something from someone. His hand reached out of the frame. But what struck her the most was how he was smiling, the flash of a grin that was so fond it made her smile in response. A pair of sunglasses dangled from his collar and beside him was a woman. Her arm tucked around his. She was beautiful, with dark hair and a sundress.

This must have been taken less than an hour before the gang shooting.

Karen’s stomach twisted in on itself, tight with nausea. He’d been there. He’d been at this particular crime, probably witnessed it. He must have thought she was working on this story, maybe even considered that she’d begun staking out the donut truck to talk to him. It was only after he’d learned what she did for a living that he’d freezed her out.

She remembered his hand as he’d held his beer. His left hand, the knuckles bruised. She remembered looking at the healing scabs. There hadn’t been a wedding ring.

Karen delved back into the articles about the shoot-out. Usually the names of victims of mass shootings weren’t difficult to find, again, Karen had the feeling she was swimming against the current. She couldn’t find any mention of the victims, even if the paper admitted there were fatalities. Karen made another cup of coffee—the cheap Mr. Coffeemaker they’d been using since starting Crime Time was beginning to look a little worn. But it was better than nothing, and Karen suspected it was going to be another late night.

* * *

It was another week before she saw him again—and this time, it was around eight in the evening.

She’d worked late; her eyes ached from looking at screens all day and she thought of the ramen noodles waiting for her at home. She could afford better—particularly now that they had a contact in the UK inquiring as to whether they’d like to do a tour there. How podcasters went on tour was something Karen had never considered, but apparently it was a thing, and Foggy was looking into it.

Later, she’d blame her inattention on her distraction and exhaustion. She wore her heels again, and her purse was tucked against her side, fingers loosely curled around the strap.

Something hit her hard.

She spun around once, caught completely off balance. One of her heels just snapped and her ankle rolled painfully. She fell to her side, still clinging to her purse more out of reflex than anything else. Someone was tugging on it, desperately trying to wrest it from her, and Karen snarled. The man was young, with the kind of red-eyed intensity that she recognized all too well. High—or coming off of something.

She needed to get a hand into her purse. If she could just—

And then she heard running footsteps and someone wrenched the mugger away with such force that her purse’s strap snapped. It fell into her lap and Karen unzipped it with shaking hands, desperately searching the silken interior. When she glanced up, she froze.

Frank had the mugger by the throat. His face was something she’d never seen before—hard as granite, eyes like chips of obsidian. He wore dark jeans and a black utility jacket, and again, his knuckles were painted in shades of red and purple. For the first time, she wondered if perhaps it had little to do with construction.

“You like purse-jacking women?” said Frank, with utter contempt.

“N-no, man,” babbled the other man, “I wasn’t—I wouldn’t—” The he threw his face forward, trying to crack his forehead against Frank’s nose. He was only half-successful, and Frank stepped back, blinking blood out of his left eye. A cut had opened up there. The junkie pulled back his fist for a blow, but Karen spoke up.

“Don’t move,” Karen snapped, and the man froze.

He saw the gun in her hand, then. She had it aimed steadily at his chest, and his attention narrowed to the point of the barrel.

“Yeah,” Karen said quietly. “You picked the wrong woman to steal from.”

The man appeared to consider, then he wrenched himself free of Frank’s grip and bolted.

Karen gritted her teeth—she either had to pull the trigger or let him go… and she wasn’t going to shoot an unarmed man in the back.

Frank made as if to step after him, but then he glanced down at Karen. “You okay?”

“I think so.” Karen flicked the safety back on, slipping the gun back into her ruined purse. She started to rise, then winced. “Fuck.”

Frank quickly knelt beside her, reaching for her leg. “Can I look?”

She nodded, without really knowing what he was asking for. He carefully ran his fingers along her ankle, probing. “I don’t feel anything broken, but it’s definitely sprained.”

“I’ll see how it looks tomorrow before I call a doctor,” said Karen, struggling to stand. He reached down, hand beneath one elbow, and helped her rise. She balanced precariously on one heeled shoe. It was only then that she realized—Frank was here. Frank had just yanked a mugger off of her like it was nothing. And there wasn’t even a donut truck in sight.

“What were you doing here?” asked Karen.

Frank glanced down the street. “Got off work late. I was walking home.”

He did smell a little like metal and machinery and sweat. She noticed, standing so close to him. “And you just saw me getting mugged and decided to jump in?”

“Didn’t realize it was you until after I’d grabbed the guy,” he said, with a small shrug.

“Is this just a thing that you do, then?” she asked, skeptically. “Hero of the night? Saving purses everywhere?”

He nodded at her broken purse. “Didn’t need my help much, did you?”

She realized he was referring to the gun. “I—I study crime,” she said, feeling defensive again. “I know the statistics.”

“Wasn’t criticizing. Smart of you, actually.” He glanced up and down the street. “How far is your place from here?”

“About three blocks.”

He glanced down at her ankle, which she still held in the air delicately. “Listen,” he said. “If you want to call someone, I’ll just stand over there. Wait for them to show up, then go my own way. Or, if you want, I can help you get home.”

It took her a few moments to reply—because she understood what he _wasn’t_ saying. He knew that she must have been wary about him knowing where she lived; any cautious woman would be. That’s why he was offering to just… stand watch while she found help she trusted. Why he wasn’t pressuring her to just lean on him and hobble home.

She thought again of that instragram picture—of a woman tucked against his side, beneath his arm and how she’d been smiling.

She’d learned to trust her gut over the years. And her gut said that Frank wasn’t the kind of man who would hurt her.

“One of my friends has a date,” she said. It was true; Foggy was meeting up with Marci for ‘just friends catching up’ drinks. “And the other was asleep when I left the offices.”

He nodded. Then, without moving toward her, without encroaching on her personal space, he held out a hand. It would be up to her to take it.

She did.

They got about half a block down—looking like the world’s most terrible three-legged race contestants with her half-hopping along and Frank just trying to keep her from topping over—before Frank said, “On a scale of one to ‘fuck no’ how opposed are you to getting carried?”

“Normally about a nine,” Karen said, through gritted teeth. Her face felt red with embarrassment and exertion. “But hopping on a high-heeled shoe is rapidly decreasing that number.”

“Okay.” He glanced down at her, considering. “Fireman’s or bridal?”

She wasn’t sure if her face could get any redder. “I’m wearing a skirt, so you’re sure as hell not slinging me across your shoulders.”

“All right.” Then he picked her up. It should have been awkward, should have been ridiculous, and part of it was—but then again, it was just a a relief not to be hopping anywhere in wholly unsuitable footwear. Frank carried her with ease, striding down the sidewalk to the right apartment building. And—all right, she would admit it to herself if no one else. He was warm and solid and it was—kind of nice. For all that she was good friends with Matt and Foggy, it had been a long time since anyone had really touched her for any extended length of time. She’d had a few one night stands over the couple of years, but her last steady boyfriend had been—well. It had been years.

When they came to her building, Frank leaned down so she could punch in the access code. “Third floor,” she said, as they angled inside. “I mean, if you still—”

“I think I can manage a few flights of stairs,” he said dryly. He wasn’t even breathing hard, as if carrying her was as easy as picking up a small dog or cat. When they reached her door, Frank carefully set her down in front of the door. She leaned on the frame, sliding her key into the lock.

“Come in,” she said, when he began to step back.

He began to refuse—but then she said, “I have a first aid kit and your forehead is still bleeding.”

Frank touched the cut as if he hadn’t remembered it was there. “Oh.”

She slipped out of her remaining shoe and hobbled into the bathroom. Thank goodness she’d bought a first aid kit when she’d moved in. She found one of those chemical ice packs and cracked it to life before securing it to her ankle with a bit of tape. Frank stood in the doorway, as if he wouldn’t enter without being invited in.

“Here,” she said, and put the open first aid kit on the counter. He stepped in, looking awkward and a little too broad for her tiny bathroom. He picked up one of the alcohol pads, tore it open and dabbed blood away. He worked with the kind of precision that came from years of practice, and he didn’t so much as flinch. He taped a bandage over the cut, then said, “Thanks.”

He looked down at her; she sat on the closed lid of the toilet in her ruined skirt, her ankle swollen, and she smiled ruefully up at him. “I think I owe you more than a donut now.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” he said, and she could tell he meant it.

“Even so,” she said. “Thank you.”

She managed to limp into the living room. “I should get you a cup of—coffee? Water? Beer?”

“Beer sounds fine,” he said. “If it’s in the fridge, I can grab it.”

At her nod, he strode into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. Karen situated herself on the couch, propping her leg up on the coffee table. The ankle was swollen but not the angry purple of a bad sprain, at least. She heard Frank walk into her small living room, cracking open a beer as he settled down. He held one out to her and she took it gladly.

It was only then she realized that they were here. In her apartment. Frank—Donut Man—Mr. Jawline. Was in her apartment.

All at once, she remembered there were dirty dishes in her sink, no food in her fridge, and her vibrator was barely hidden beneath the covers of her bed. At least she’d remembered to take the trash out, so the place smelled fine.

She hadn’t planned on company. Never mind him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, abruptly. She glanced at him, frowning.

“For what?”

“I kind of—ambushed you,” he said. “Last week, near the truck. Must’ve looked like a lunatic chasing you down, but it had been gnawing at me. If I was—if you were…” He trailed off, scratching at the back of his head. His hair was shorter there, and she could hear the scritch of it beneath his fingertips. “I listened to some of your work. Googled ‘Karen’ and ‘crime podcast.’ Sorry if that was creepy. You’re—it’s good. The podcast. I listened to a few episodes.” He frowned a little. “Well, except the bullshit about the parrot.”

Karen couldn’t help herself; she laughed. “Foggy likes the weird stuff,” she admitted. “And no, it’s not creepy. I told you what I do.”

He took another sip of his beer. “Did you look it up? The carousel?”

She didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yeah, I did.” She grimaced. “Sorry. I—it’s like dangling a toy in front of a dog who loves to play fetch. My first instinct is run after stuff.”

“No,” he replied. “Don’t be—it’s all public record.”

She gazed down at her beer for a few moments. The label was damp with condensation. “You were there when it happened, weren’t you?”

He exhaled hard. “Yeah.” He didn’t speak for while and she didn’t press him. Perhaps it was the silence that loosened something between them, made it easier for him to continue. “My family was killed in the crossfire.”

Family. Not just a wife, then. She remembered that photo, of Frank reaching out to someone beyond the camera’s view.

“Frank, I’m sorry,” she said.

“Thought maybe you were doing an episode on it or something,” he said. “Maybe you were staking out a donut truck for an eyewitness.”

Karen shook her head. “Nope. I just like coffee and crullers.”

He smiled a little, at that—just a crease of his mouth. “Can I ask you something?”

“You dragged a mugger off of me. I think you’ve earned a question or two.”

Frank took another drag off his beer before he spoke again. “How’d you get into this?”

“True crime?” she said.

“Yeah.”

She considered her answer. She knew the usual statements—the ones she gave for press releases and interviews. But they didn’t seem right here, in the intimacy of her apartment.

“You lost someone, didn’t you?” Frank’s voice was quiet, unassuming.

She glanced at him. “Why’d you think that?”

“The way you write your pieces,” he said. “You—there’s a focus to the victims. A way of slanting things toward the families. Only ones I know who talk about the dead like that—they lost people.”

She considers all the answers she could give. She’s too tired to go into details, so she gives him the simplest of replies.

“Yeah,” she said. “I did.”

He nodded. “Thought so. It was why—why after I listened to a few episodes, I thought maybe this wasn’t some kind of elaborate stalking routine.”

“I have never stalked someone I wanted to be a source,” she said, with a small smile. “I’ve called, emailed, and occasionally bribed with coffee, but never stalked.”

His expression was steady. “You think you’d want to do it?”

“Stalk someone?”

“Write about the carousel,” he said. But it wasn’t accusatory—merely inquiring.

Her thumbnail dug into the damp beer label. “Would you want me to?”

Again, Frank took a few moments to answer. “I—don’t know. What happened—it was fucked up. Some kind of drug deal gone south, that’s all I was able to really find out. I was at the park that day, with my wife and two kids.”

Karen winced. Two children.

God, she couldn’t even imagine.

“I’d just come back from a deployment,” he continued, and she filed that little bit of information away for later, “and we always celebrated at the park. We brought our blanket down to our usual spot and…” His throat jerked in a swallow. “The memories are fuzzy. Screams. When the gunfire rang out—I remember the worst parts the most. The carnage. Then I was shot in the head.”

“Shit,” she breathed.

He nodded. “When I came to, it was weeks later. I’d been in a vegetative state. An old friend had been sitting with me for a lot of that time—and if he hadn’t been there, I don’t know what I’d have done. I do know this much,” he said. “There wasn’t any big news production. No articles, no interviews. Found a few blog posts, one Bulletin piece. But—it was like it had never happened. Like—”

“Someone had buried it,” Karen finished, and he looked sharply at her. “I did some research, remember? You’re right. It should have caused more of a news stir. And if you wanted me to do some digging, I’d be glad to. I don’t usually do organized crime—like I said before, that’s Matt’s area. I don’t even have to write anything on it—but if you want to know more, I could ask around.”

“Really?” he said. “It hasn’t been too long?”

Karen shook her head, dismissive. “I’ve dug into mysterious disappearances from the eighties. Two years is nothing.”

He regarded her with a frown that seemed more thoughtful than—well, _frowny._

“Of course,” she said, a little cautious. “Might help if I had a last name, you know. And—the names of your family.”

There was a moment of silence. She could hear the slight rasp of his inhalation, then he replied. “Castle. Maria—she was my wife. Lisa was my eldest and then Frankie Junior.”

There was something about names. They made things so much more real. Three people. He’d lost three people in the span of a few moments. Karen knew the wrenching terror of losing even one person in a moment of chaos and trauma. She couldn’t imagine three. “Okay,” she said softly. “I’ll see what I can find.”

He met her eyes, then looked away. “Thank you.”

Karen swallowed more beer, if only to give them both a chance to recover themselves. The space between them felt heavy, and as if they’d rushed into an intimacy that neither was prepared for. Of course, getting mugged and fighting off a potential thief together probably did away with a lot of societal pretenses.

“Can I ask you something?” she said.

“Sure.”

“Why’d you give me your donut that day?”

A smile broke across his face. “Really? After everything I told you, that’s your question?”

She shrugged.

He gestured vaguely at himself. “Your crack about my jawline. It was—fuck, it was the first thing that made me laugh in a really long time.”

“Well, I’m glad something came out of my low blood sugar induced irritation.”

His face softened a little. “Yeah.”

She looked away, her face feeling a little too warm.

* * *

They continued to meet at the donut truck.

But this time, it was an agreed upon meeting place, rather than simple chance. She developed a system—his lunchtime was around quarter past one, so she’d take a walk down to the donut truck to grab her coffee and talk to Frank. She gave him a few updates on things she had learned and he asked about other cases she was writing about. She ended up telling him about the disappearance of April Gansey and how her article had stalled. He told her that he’d been with the Marines. A sniper, of all things. She told him about moving to New York only a few years ago; he talked a little about growing up here. She told him a little about Matt and Foggy and he talked about the friend that had been with him when’d awoken in the hospital—a man called Curtis, who sounded nice. Sometimes they sat on the edge of a nearby fountain, on the outskirts of a small park, while pigeons strolled by and gazed at the donuts with sharp-eyed, avian interest. Most of the time, they got crullers. Once in a while, she would pick an apple fritter—and once, she got a maple bacon bar. Frank looked at dubiously and she laughed at his slightly disgusted expression when she took a bite.

“Come on,” she said. “Guy like you—shouldn’t you be putting bacon on everything?”

“Shit’s got more fat than protein,” he said reasonably.

“You’re eating a donut. You cannot be a health nut.”

He shrugged. “We all have our vices.”

He was… nice. Which was probably an odd thing to think about a former sniper who she’d once seen hold a man by the throat. But she noticed he always left a decent tip at the donut truck and more than often had spare change for those who asked for it. The few times he spoke of his family, his whole face softened and it made her feel oddly protective. She knew what pain looked like; she knew how it felt to hit rock bottom. She’d clawed her way out of that pit by herself—but she wouldn’t wish that solitude on anyone. Frank was clearly trying to find his own way out, and she wasn’t sure why he trusted her, but somehow—he did.

“All right we have to meet Donut Man at some point,” Foggy said.

Karen was working at the communal table in the office, and Matt was in the recording closet.

“Or should I say, ‘Donut Boyfriend?’” Foggy asked.

Karen gave him a flat-eyed stare. “He is not my boyfriend.”

“You meet him every day for coffee.”

“It’s not every day.” But it had been, more often than not. The only days she was used to not seeing him were the weekends.

“You see him more than I see Marci,” said Foggy. And it was true—they’d started sleeping together again, despite Foggy claiming they weren’t truly back together.

Karen had a feeling those two would either end up happily married—or they’d bicker until Marci bit his head off like a praying mantis.

Karen couldn’t decide which was more likely.

“I’m helping him dig into the carousel shooting,” she said. “He wants answers about why his family died. He’s still in mourning.”

“Wasn’t that carousel thing like two years ago?” Foggy said. “I mean—it wouldn’t be wholly unheard of for someone to start dating again after two years.”

“He—it isn’t like that.” If this were Matt, Karen would have shut him down. They had a near miss of almost-dating. Well, one date and almost sleeping together, and Karen was desperately glad _that_ never happened because his ex showed up about twelve hours later and Karen found them in bed together the next day. It took a few months for the awkward factor to dissipate between her and Matt—and even now that it had, Karen still didn’t feel entirely comfortable discussing her dating life with him.

Foggy and Karen had only ever been friends-friends, which made it easier to talk about stuff like this.

“You like him,” said Foggy. “You wouldn’t be having coffee with him so much if you didn’t. Story or no story.”

Karen leaned on her elbows, pressing her palms to her forehead. “Fuck. He’s—if you saw him, you’d get it. His fucking jawline. And—he’s nice. He’s one of the few guys who doesn’t just barge his way into my space—he waits to be invited in. Like, literally. He was bleeding after that mugging thing and I had to invite him into my bathroom to get him use the first aid kit. Do you know how rare that is?”

“You make him sound like a vampire,” said Foggy. He frowned. “Do I do that? The barging thing?”

She shook her head. “No, you don’t. You’re another rare one. Marci’s lucky.”

Foggy beamed for a moment, then he said, “You’re trying to distract me. We were talking about Donut Boyfriend. Tell me, why do you hang out with him again?”

“Stop calling him that.” Karen let out a gusting breath. “He’s smart, respectful, tips servers, literally fought off a mugger for me, and I once saw him when a dog got free of its leash and ran over to us and he just—knelt down and started petting it. It was really sweet.”

“You have got it bad,” said Foggy, a little wonderingly.

Karen considered arguing, but let the subject drop in favor of needling him about Marci again.

It wasn’t like she expected anything more than friendship from Frank. He was a good man who’d gone through enough pain—and he didn’t need her tangled emotions piled on top of everything.

* * *

It was about three months after the mugging that Frank asked her for a favor.

“Yeah, sure,” she said. She was about three days out from her period, and she’d ended up caving and getting one of the chocolate creams. Matt was right—they did taste like chalk. Foggy was also right—it kind of tasted like those crappy childhood donuts and she found herself devouring this one.

Frank hadn’t ordered a cruller, which meant something was off. He sipped a cup of black coffee as if he barely tasted it. “I—shit. I probably shouldn’t ask you this.”

“Frank,” she said, “you can ask me anything.”

He gazed at his cup for a few moments.

“I have a friend who’s dating someone new,” he said heavily. “He wants us all to go out, and he just said I should bring someone too, and I wouldn’t ask but he’s a decent guy and he wants me to meet her and… of course Bill will have someone, too, and if I go by myself—”

“You need someone there so you won’t be a third wheel?” she asked.

He grimaced and nodded.

“Sure,” she said. “This is Curtis, right? Your friend?”

“Yeah.” There was a furrow dug deep in his forehead. It made her want to laugh. He’d looked less uncomfortable when dealing with a mugger.

“When is this?”

“Tuesday,” he said.

“That works—our flight to France is on Wednesday evening.”

He smiled a little. “Can’t believe podcasters go on European tours.”

“We are an elite bunch,” said Karen. “Although it sounds less elite when you find out you’re actually sleeping in the guest bedrooms of your fans and hoping they don’t murder you in the night.”

Frank shook his head in bewilderment. “You have an… interesting career.”

“Don’t I know it,” said Karen.

* * *

She met up with Frank at an unassuming bar, where he introduced her to his friends: Curtis, who was smiling and friendly, and Billy, who grinned at her.

“Murder Girl,” he said.

“I do not call her that,” said Frank sharply. To Karen, “I do not call you that.”

“It’s fine,” Karen said. “Everyone in the office refers to you as ‘Donut Man.’ And I prefer ‘Murder Woman,’ thank you very much.”

Curtis snorted. He was holding hands with Delia, his new girlfriend—the one he wanted Frank and Billy to meet. Billy had brought someone he’d met through work. Her name was Dinah, and she seemed sharp but interesting. Karen made a mental note to try and talk to her more later.

It was—it was kind of nice. Standing around a table with Frank and his friends, listening to the back and forth of the conversation. Frank brought her a beer and stood at her shoulder, as if glad for the company. She could understand why he’d wanted her there: Dinah and Billy were clearly at that, ‘we cant keep our hand off each other’ stage of the relationship and Curtis and Delia were tentative and gooey-eyed. She could imagine Frank standing here on his own, feeling vaguely out of place. At least with her around, the numbers were balanced.

It wasn’t a date. She told herself that a few times, just to remind herself. It felt like a date—but it wasn’t a date. She and Frank were just friends, as much as she might wish otherwise.

About an hour into the evening, Karen excused herself to use the bathroom. When she came back, Dinah was at the bar and Curtis and Delia were whispering quietly to one another. Frank and Billy were talking.

The din of the bar faded enough for Karen to hear a few words.

“—Nice,” said Frank. “Found out more about the carousel massacre than I ever could have. She’s got a knack for it.” 

“See I told you,” said Billy. “Back when you were all, ‘Oh, no, she’s a big bad podcaster.’ I told you she could be useful.”

_Useful._

It felt like someone had dumped a cold drink over her head; she went still and frigid, face freezing in place. She saw the picture at once—Curtis with his arm around Delia, kissing her cheek playfully. Billy eyeing Dinah as she leaned across the bar to speak to the server. And Frank, arms crossed comfortably across his chest. All of them—they were a unit. Not just in the military sense, but they had a kind of easy companionship and trust that Karen felt as if she were watching from the outside.

She was rather used to that feeling; it came with being a podcaster, a writer. She was an observer, a person who spent her time writing down other people’s stories instead of living her own. And maybe that was part of the reason she’d gotten into true crime, because at least those stories were things she could stand apart from and be glad about it.

But this—this was different. She’d thought she and Frank were friends, at the very least. She didn’t think he was just… using her because of what she did. To find answers about his family. Which—all right, she could understand the impulse, but it still hurt.

Frank looked up at that moment, his gaze meeting Karen’s. She wasn’t sure what her face looked like.

 _Be polite_ , some part of her whispered. _Don’t make a fuss. Just smile and—_

 _Fuck polite,_ another part of her said.

She listened to the latter. Taking her purse a little more tightly in hand, she turned on her heel and walked out of the bar.

The night air was cool and she felt better the moment she was on the street. She began striding away, toward a cluster of taxis she saw congregating at the end of the block.

A door opened and closed behind her. Footsteps on concrete, and then—a hand at her arm. “Karen?”

Karen shook him off and Frank’s hand dropped back to his side like he’d been burned. He looked at her, confused and a bit worried.

“I just remembered I have to go home,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” he said. “Did someone in there—” His expression darkened a fraction, and he shifted restlessly on his feet.

“I just can’t stay,” she said. “Sorry if that isn’t _useful_ to you.”

He went still. “You heard that.”

“Of course I did.” Karen crossed her arms over her stomach. It made her feel a little better. “And—I get it. Frank, I really do. What happened to you was terrible and if you’d just come to me and asked for help, I’d have done it. You didn’t have to do—this. Pretend to be friends or do that whole ‘bumping into me on the street’ thing after we met at that bar. Your friend told you to do this, did he? That maybe I could help you? Did you keep going to that donut truck because you knew I’d be there?”

He hesitated—and that was answer enough.

“I’ll send you all the files I have,” said Karen. “And then we’re done. You don’t have to keep pretending to like me so you can get answers.”

“Karen,” he said, and it sounded as though he wanted to apologize, but he didn’t have the words for it.

Karen turned and walked away.

He didn’t follow.

* * *

When she got home, she emailed him her entire folder on the Stanton massacre.

Then she blocked his email, his phone number, and checked in for her flight. France would help. France was where heartbroken people were supposed to get another chance, right? Or was that Italy? There was some movie about it, but Karen had never watched it.

Sighing, she peeled herself out of her dress, curled up on her bed in her softest pajamas, and tried not to think about anything at all.

* * *

The team of Crime Time spent a month in Europe.

It was exactly what Karen expected—ridiculous, entertaining, so much fun, exhausting, and they ate so much food that Karen was pretty sure her favorite pencil skirt wasn’t going to fit when she got back home. Foggy got some great interviews with the police in the UK about some of the weirder crimes they’d dealt with, Matt dug into some conspiracy with organized crime to do with old warlords or something like that, and Karen spent her days tracing disappearances across Europe. Mostly of young women, mostly of those who society wouldn’t have noticed. It wasn’t always fun work, but it felt satisfying—and maybe her stories would dredge up new witnesses, maybe find leads for the police.

She didn’t think about Frank.

Or well, she tried not to think about him. But damn it—she missed him. She’d gone from seeing him nearly every day to nothing, and it was hard to convince her heart that the change was a good one. So she threw herself back into witness accounts and paperwork.

When they returned to the New York airport, all Karen wanted to do was sleep for a month. Once she could figure out what time it was, anyway.

“I’m going home,” she said, in the taxi, “and not coming into work for like a week, I hope you know that. I don’t want to see your faces for seven days, at least."

“Love you, too,” said Foggy. “But yeah, I have seen sides of you never expected to see, and while I love and adore you, I could have died happily without knowing what your morning breath smells like.”

“This is the problem with touring,” said Karen. “I also didn’t need to see your ass when you walked out of the shower that one day, either.”

“French towels are small,” Foggy said.

“I, for one, am looking forward to getting a drink at Josie’s and sleeping in my own bed,” said Matt.

“Same,” said Foggy.

“I’ll just sleep,” said Karen, as the taxi pulled up to the curb. “Thank you for the memories, but it’s time to be a hermit for a few days.”

Karen dragged her luggage into her apartment building, up the stairs, and to her door. Her apartment smelled a little musty, but it was so good to be home.

She slept for a good twelve hours, only grumbling awake when sunlight made her bedroom too warm to stand. She showered off the general funk of the airport, and stretched her legs with a walk.

She moved on autopilot, and then she realized where she’d ended up: the spot along the street where the donut truck was always parked.

Except it wasn’t there.

Karen frowned at the empty spot on the street. It felt wrong somehow. To see that exposed pavement. And—where the hell was she supposed to get coffee?

“Hey.”

The sound of his voice made her shoulders stiffen. She turned and saw Frank about thirty feet away, sitting at a bench. In a month’s time, he’d grown a short beard and his hair was a little longer.

She considered walking away. She considered saying something sharp and witty—but she was still too jet-lagged to think of anything.

Frank rose to his feet and walked toward her. He had two cups of coffee with him; she recognized the label as some shop a few blocks down. He held one out.

Karen didn’t take it.

“I haven’t opened the files,” he said.

Her eyes flashed up to meet his. “What?”

“Those files you emailed me,” he said. “I haven’t opened them. Didn’t feel right.”

“So you staked out my favorite food truck to tell me that?” she said flatly.

“Food truck closed two weeks ago,” said Frank. “The young man who worked there—he, uh, kind of blew up a building.”

“ _What?_ ”

Frank nodded, grim-faced. “Kid was in Curtis’s PTSD group. He stopped going a while back, got involved in some gun rights, far right bullshit. The reason I started going to this food truck was because Curtis asked me to check in on him. Honestly, I don’t even like donuts.”

“We didn’t hear about any of this,” said Karen.

“I’m betting you were probably in the stacks of some library buried deep in London for a lot of the trip,” said Frank, raising his coffee to his lips.

She shrugged. “Well, there was also Paris. And we hit a few Scandinavian countries, too.”

He smiled, but it was a thin attempt and dropped away almost immediately. “I wanted to apologize.”

“You don’t have to, Frank.” She did take the second cup of coffee from him. “I get it.”

“No, you don’t,” said Frank. “I started going to the food truck ‘cause Curt asked. Then I ran into you, and you—you made me laugh. Don’t think you understand how much that meant to me. Couldn’t remember the last time someone talked to me and saw me, instead of… what happened to me. And then yeah, I found out what you did and Billy did suggest that I should talk to you. If you were digging into the Stanton massacre, I could find out more about what happened to my wife, my kids. But—Karen, I wouldn’t have done the rest if I didn’t mean it. I met up with you because you were kind and funny and made the world seem less like shit. And when I realized I liked being with you, I was scared you’d stop so yeah, maybe I egged on the investigation angle a bit. You get—you get really intent about work and I knew you’d never turn away from it.

“And this whole month,” he said, “I kept coming here. Turning to talk to someone who wasn’t there, who wasn’t even in the country. I texted you once, and you didn’t reply.”

“I blocked you,” she said.

He nodded. “Thought as much. And I get it, I do. But—Karen, you have to know that I asked you to that bar for the same reason I met up with you at that donut truck nearly every day.”

“And why was that, Frank?” she said, feeling more than a little exhausted.

“Because I like my life more when you’re in it,” he said. “Because I like you—and fuck, that sounds so middle school, but it’s true. You make me feel human again, and I didn’t think I ever could. But if you don’t want to talk to me again, I’d get it.” He looked stoic, but she could see the uncertainty lurking at the corners of his mouth and eyes.

“When you say you like me,” she said slowly, “what exactly do you mean?”

He hesitated. “I—I was always really bad at this. I only met my wife because she was the one who talked to me first. And after her, I never thought there’d be anyone else. That I’d want anyone else. But that night at the bar it felt… kind of right, you know? But of course if you wanted to just be friends, that’s fine. And not in some bullshit, ‘I’m pretending to be your friend so I can try to sleep with you later’ way. I like talking with you and if that’s all you ever wanted, I’d be fine with that.”

“Okay, buried in that somewhere,” said Karen, “I think was the implication that you’re attracted to me.”

“Told you I was bad at this,” said Frank.

“You weren’t kidding,” she replied, with a small smile. “Frank—I am jet-lagged beyond belief and not sure what time zone I’m in, and all I really want is to drink about five more cups of coffee, so could you please just stop talking and take me out to breakfast?”

He blinked. “You’d want to?”

“Yes,” she said. “And then at some point I can tell you about Europe and the weirdest thing that UK customs have seen a person try to smuggle through customs, and at some point, I’m probably going to want to kiss you and see if that ridiculous jawline is actually as sharp as it looks.” She shook her head. “Dear god, I am out of it.”

He laughed. It was surprised but heartfelt.

“Okay,” he said, a little more quietly. “But—can we delay the first two, if only for thirty seconds?”

“Thirty seconds, why,” Karen began to say, but then his hand was on her hip and his other was at her cheek and his fingers were warm and callused and he smelled a bit like coffee and his jacket was worn against her hands and—

He kissed her and it was gentle and a little unassuming, like he was asking her a question. It was just a brush of his mouth against hers and she felt it from the top of her head to—well, lower than that. She kissed him back and the world went a little quiet, a little away. She liked everything about the kiss: the soft press of his hips against hers, the slowness of it, the way he drew away, if only for a moment, as if to check she were all right with this. Then she was kissing him again, and yes, they were getting dangerously close to making out on a street corner which is something she swore she’d never do. She pulled back, said breathlessly, “Breakfast?”

“Yeah,” he said. Dazed. “Yeah I could definitely do breakfast.” He hesitated. “Anything but donuts, please.”

She laughed, her fingers twining through his, and they walked down the street together.


End file.
